Ben Blankenship won the men’s division of the Professional Mile by nearly a photo finish, sprinting ahead down the stretch to finish with a time of 4:05.09. Following shortly was Heather Kampf, taking the women’s Professional Mile title with a time of 4:46.7.

“I expected it to be even tighter (than it was),” Blankenship said of his narrow victory. “I looked back a couple times and just thought, ‘Oh hell, this is going to be a footrace’ then just took the opportunity to get away at the end.”

Kampf and Blankenship were both among the elite runners recruited by the Crim to take part in the inaugural event and each said they’d like to return next year.

“Absolutely enjoyed it and I know this race, the 10-mile at least, has been going on for years and years and adding this is a great thing,” Kampf said. “I know this is a town that’s faced a lot of hardships, so it’s cool to see something like this continue on.”

Grand Blanc Olympian Geena Gall was also in the Professional Mile field and finished fourth. Gall was admittedly disappointed with the outcome but also shared praises of having a professional mile race near home.

“It was completely different than last year,” said Gall, who ran the Michigan Mile in 2012 and finished second overall. “Last year, I was in a field with little girls 5 years old and then also older men. This year, to have an elite field of just top women’s runners was great. It had a lot more of a professional feeling, which is what I’m more used to out on the circuit, so I love that this is now a part of the Crim.”

Flushing High School’s cross country team blew away the competition in the High School Challenge’s boys division, taking the first three spots. The team time was 15:16 and Kris Schwieman was the first to finish. His brother Kyle Schwieman finished right behind him in second and Robert Roese took third.

“It was big for our time, we had five guys in the top six or something like that, so Flushing really represented,” Kris Schwieman said. “It was cool. We don’t get to do a lot of events like this other than the high school season stuff. We came wanting to win and we’ll be looking to defend it next year.”

Burton Bendle finished second and Flint Powers Catholic was third in the team competition.

Julia Vanitvelt, a freshman at Powers Catholic, was the top female finisher in the High School Challenge and won by a sizable margin, getting a time of 6:00.25. Madelyn Harville of Goodrich was second and Sarah Dedolph of Swartz Creek was third.

The open mile division was the last wave to go off and Caleb Hess, 17, of Owosso crossed the finish line first with a time of 4:49. Hess is committed to run cross country at Eastern Michigan University.

Sarah Martinez of Grand Blanc was the top female finisher in the open division with a time of 5:54.

In its first year on a Friday night, the Michigan Mile reached its capacity with 1,200 runners and also drew a lively crowd of spectators huddled around the finish line on the U-M Flint Campus.